Chimney removal and roof patch in Long Beach, CA

Many Long Beach homes built from the 1920s through the 1950s still carry their original brick chimney, and many of those fireplaces have not been lit in years. The brick above the roof keeps aging, the mortar turns sandy, and the flashing needs work every few years. Owners start asking: why keep it?

Our roofers take the chimney down by hand to below the roof deck, close the opening, and rebuild the roof so the patch blends with the tile or shingle around it. If you want it gone all the way to the ground, we handle the roof side and coordinate the rest. A permit can be required, and we check that before the first brick comes off.

Below the roofline or all the way down

Most chimney removals we do stop just below the roof deck, inside the attic. That removes everything you see from the street, ends the flashing problems, and lets us close the roof as if the chimney was never there. The part left below stays in place, and we cap its top so debris cannot fall down the flue.

Some owners want the whole chimney out, down through the firebox and hearth to the foundation. Work on the interior, the firebox, the hearth and the footing can involve masonry, framing, drywall and other trades, with its own permit questions. We do the roof part and work in sequence with those trades so the roof is never left open.

Taking the brick down without hurting the house

Old chimneys come down one course at a time, by hand, never pushed over in one piece. Our crew loosens the brick with hand tools, lowers it in buckets or down a covered chute into a bin, and keeps the weight off the roof. We protect the roofing around the chimney, cover plants and walkways, and keep mortar dust out of the house.

First we remove what is attached: old antennas, satellite brackets and cable lines. We also check whether a gas water heater or furnace still vents through the flue. If one does, the right trade has to reroute that vent before the chimney can come down, and we tell you up front.

Framing, decking and underlayment over the opening

With the brick below the deck, we frame the opening between the rafters so the new sheathing has solid support on every edge. On older homes with board sheathing, we match the thickness of what is there, so the patch does not sit high or low under the finished roof.

Underlayment goes over the new decking and is woven into the existing layer, lapped the way water runs. On tile that means new underlayment and battens in the patch. On shingle it means synthetic underlayment tucked under the courses above. Rot around the old chimney base gets replaced before we close it up.

Matching the patch to tile or shingle

A good chimney patch is hard to find from the sidewalk. On clay barrel tile, the best match is often original tile borrowed from a back slope, with new or reclaimed tile placed there instead. On concrete S-tile, we look for the same profile and color, and blend from hidden areas if it is no longer made.

A faded shingle roof never matches a new bundle exactly. We pick the closest color and weave new shingles across a wider area so there is no square outline. If your roof is near the end of its life, removing the chimney right before a re-roof saves paying for a patch twice.

When to call about chimney removal & roof patch

Old brick chimneys on Long Beach homes

The chimneys we take down most often sit on Craftsman bungalows, Spanish Revival homes and Tudor cottages in Bluff Park, Belmont Heights, California Heights, Los Cerritos, Wrigley and Bixby Knolls, plus early post-war ranch homes in Los Altos and Lakewood Village. Owners tell us the same thing: the fireplace is not used, and unreinforced brick above the roof worries them in earthquakes. We are roofers, not engineers. A structural opinion on the house comes from an engineer.

A permit can be required in Long Beach for chimney removal and the roof work that follows. Homes in the city's historic districts can need extra review before a visible roofline change, and removing a street-facing chimney is one. Cities outside Long Beach have their own building departments. Near the coast in Belmont Shore and Naples, salt air rusts old chimney flashing and caps, one more reason owners remove the chimney instead of reflashing it.